Color

There are various ways to accentuate a specific part in its installation position. However in order to keep the printing cost as low as possible, it is recommended to opt for stylistic devices that are all in black and white.

An estimated nine to twelve percent of the male population suffers from some form of color vision deficiency, commonly called 'color blindness.' It is important for computer interface designers to take into account and eliminate, if possible, any potential confusions that can arise because of color vision deficiencies. There are two major types of color blindness. The most prevalent causes are confusion between red and green. This type affects approximately eight to ten percent of the male population. In another type, an additional one to two Percent of men suffer from a deficiency in perceiving blue/yellow differences. Less than one percent of women suffer from any form of color blindness. To understand color blindness better, it is helpful to be familiar with the ways in which colors differ from each other. One standard way to discuss color is to divide it into hue, saturation and brightness (HSB).

For backgrounds behind text, use solid, contrasting colors, and avoid the use of textures and patterns, which can make letterforms difficult to distinguish or even illegible. Choose combinations of text color and background color with care. Value contrast between body text and its background color should be a minimum of about eighty percent.

Using color and color alone as a visual cue is appealing because it’s usually an aesthetically pleasing and a minimalist design technique. Calls to action and visual cues are critical to interface designers because users, especially on the web, have limited patience and are looking to process information and make decisions quickly. Since the brain recognizes and forms an emotional bond with colors almost immediately, colors are a natural choice for visual cues. Unfortunately, it’s easy to alienate or confuse some of your users when some of those aesthetically pleasing colors look very similar. To point out a few interfaces that use hard to differentiate colors as visual cues, here are a few examples that have given me some trouble.

Supply two color values in either hex, short hex, RGB percentages, or RGB decimals and get as many as ten colors shades between the two you supplied. Great for finding a color halfway between two shades you like, or mixing two colors together in various proportions.

Did you know that a site visitor forms his or her first impression about your site within the first nine seconds of a visit? Making sure your color scheme is in contour with your site's content and visitors, is very important. You want the color scheme to enhance your site and it's content, not distract or confuse your users.
Color gives users cues as to your site's navigation, grouping of content, importance, relationships, etc. For this reason, color is an essential element of Web site design.
Most of the people relate to color similarly online and offline. Visitors to your site, whether they know it or not, respond to colors and other visual elements on your web site on a psychological level. An intrigued (and non-confused) site visitor is more likely to engage in the goal of your site -- whether it is meant to inform, entertain, or to sell goods or services.

Every year I look forward to the Communication Arts issue that has the color predictions for the coming year. Mostly because I'm fascinated with the subject, but also because I want to see the funny color names they come up with.

This glossary lists and explains color and visual perception terms which are relevant for graphic and Web design as well as usability. The information was taken from several sources and adapted to the needs of this glossary

The term 'color fidelity' refers to the successful interoperability of color data, from image creation to output across multiple targets, such that color reproduction quality consistent with the user’s intent can be achieved Note: Interoperability among system color components, necessary for color fidelity, is both color-workflow and market-segment dependent definitions for architecture, image state, and image processing.

Traditionally, technical documents have been produced in black and white because the cost of color reproduction on paper is high. With new delivery options of the Web and PDF, color is suddenly available at no cost online. And new digital printers make color on paper increasingly affordable. When opportunity knocks, issues tend to follow. Writers will find that using color is a learning experience. There is a new alphabet soup: RGB, CMYK, GIF, JPEG, CSS. There are new buzzwords: spot colors, process colors, digital printing. There are new techniques for representing color in Web pages and in PDF documents intended for paper or screen. Our presentation focuses on practical techniques, not graphic design.

Learning how to match the color you see on screen with that in your printed output is critical information for any digital artist or photographer. But first you need to understand how color works both on computer display and on paper. Start with this chapter from 'Real World Color Management.'

You're seeing red. They're seeing orange. Not the same, is it? More often than not, color on the web is approximate. So how do you choose colors that are going to work best? Are you forever stuck with the old 216 color 'web-safe' colors? Is there technology that ensures what you see is what your visitors get?